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Copyright, 1891, by Edw. L. Fales. 



^' PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. ^ 



EDWARD LIPPITT FALES, 

ST. PAUL, MINN. 



When, from the darkness where it germinates. 

The babe is brought to hght, and hfe's first veil 

Is torn aside by tender, skillful hands, 

The unaccustomed orbs of sight are dazed 

And for a time the world is indistinct. 

With lights and shades in meaningless arra}^ 

But this environment soon forms, and hints 

Hereditary lend the mind their aid. 

With flash of jewels and caressing tones. 

To learn the beauty of surrounding lights. 

A spoon of silvery sheen — a ribbon bright 

Whose crimson-fluttering pennon seems to be 

The ensign of existence — glowing lamps 

That lure the little fingers as a torch 

Beguiles the insects of the night — and then 

That strange, mysterious firelight, with its tongues 

Of varying flame, whence comes in later years 

Companionship with streams of changeful thought. 

Soon more than these, the light of kindred eyes — 

The all-embracing tenderness of one 

Whose look of mother-love scorns time or place — 

The bending father's glance of joy and pride. 

The vision grows in power. The child beholds 

The wide dominion of the natural world 

Where Beauty reigns, queen of the senses five. 

Bursting the gates of morn, the sun appears 

Clad in soft garments, and with feet unshod 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

Ascends the glowing pathway of the sky 

Until at noon his sovereign eye looks down 

Upon the toiling sons of time, to be 

The glory and the beauty of their day. 

Behold the wonderful transfigurations 

In happy hours produced by rays of light: 

The fountain throws a thousand gems in air — 

The sailing clouds seem argosies illumed — 

The twilight wood becomes a bright arcade — 

The rugged hills their royal shadows blend — 

The green-clad fields put on their golden crowns — 

While flowers unfold their petals and appear 

In fairest colors of the earth and sky. 

Above us, like a coronet of flowers, 

An heavenly garland over earthly heads, 

The rainbow blossoms, loveliest, frailest bloom 

Of all the ages — one short hour it stands 

And then, untouched by time, it fades away. 

The earth, the sea, the air, the drop of water. 

The smallest grain of sand, the vagrant stone. 

Yes, even the common clod, when brought to light, 

Reflect the beauties of their parent sun. 

These vanish with the day. Now comes the night, 

When new enchantment fills the vaster space. 

And other sources of pervading light 

Irradiate the wider realms of nature. 

The eyes of infancy all hail the moon 

With feelings of affection and delight, 

For constant beams that warm, familiar smile 

Upon the great round face it bends to them. 

But from the distant stars, though bright and twinkling, 

There emanates a quality of wonder. 

An influence of .unearthly multitude 

In radiance steadfast and sublime — a source 

Of crystal joy, veined by a golden thread 

Where runs the first faint whispering of God. 

The free impressions of the child when led 

Into the temples reared by human hands 

Are mixtures of incongruous elements. 

The burning tapers and the incense clouds, 

With broidered vestments and with colored panes, 

Give pleasure to the young and thus effect 

A portion of their purpose; but the sense 

Of beautiful proportions and the breath 

Of noble discourse and the grace of pure 

Devotion have as yet no power to move. 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

Passing from youth to manhood's early prime 
More hght is shed upon the truths of life, 
More excellent beauty is discerned in Strength. 
The struggling elements against the man 
In stormy surges roll. His mighty heart 
Must look unfrighted on their fierce advance; . 
His strong right arm must hurl them back again. 
Although his shield of innocence, bestowed 
First by the Master's hand, is worn through all 
The heat and burden of the day, full soon 
The sun is*in the West, and still must find 
That honored badge unspotted by the world. 
The sun is yet, though in a stronger sense. 
The glory and the beauty of the day. 
Tremendous forces are at work through all 
His realm. The coal and diamond, brothers twin 
And fashioned on the selfsame forge, give up 
Their energies confined in ages past. 
The blocks rough-hewn from quarries numberless — 
The cedars from the brow of Lebanon — 
The gold, the ivory and the precious stones 
Are varied fruits of those resplendant loins. 
That wondrous sun through ages unconceived 
Toils on and with vulcanic strength and skill 
Produces every day some form improved 
Of universal life. The rocks — the fires 
And floods that make them plastic to his touch — 
The slime of ocean with its dawning life — 
'The atmosphere enfolding land and sea — 
The winds of heaven that sweep and purify — 
The caverns dark, with crystal shapes adorned — 
The red volcanoes and their breath of flame — 
The buried elements — the ocean pearls — 
The rich deposits of metallic kind — 
The mother-goil with her sustaining powers — 
The growth of plants, their various flowers and fruits- 
The active life of wood and plain — the warmth, 
The foods, the fabrics and the working tools, 
And even the very thoughts of man, are reared 
And multiplied from that prolific source. 
With solar strength man stretches forth his hand 
And mass and molecule obey his will. 
Activities of heat and light and sound, 
Magnetic and electric forces join 
The servant trains of Science and of Art. 
The strong man sees the strength in everything: 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

The rainbow has no different lustre now, 

And yet the power of knowledge has revealed 

A secret beauty higher than of sense. 

That glorious arch thrown far across the sky 

Resolves itself into a million pearls 

Pierced by a million glances of the sun, 

And these returned, by geometric paths, 

In one united and fraternal band, 

To sweep the heavenly fields harmonious 

And paint themselves upon a million souls. 

So in the watches of serenest night 

Cyclopean music bursts upon the ear 

That listens for the mind, and the mind's eye 

Beholds throughout the universal depths 

The giant march of worlds. Sun after sun, 

In starry grandeur and in glorious clouds, 

Like bannered armies wheel through infinite space — 

A stirring vision full of pomp and power, 

A revelation of the bare sublime 

That lifts the soul with elemental strength. 

Those mystic gravitative ties that bind 

The solar system to some greater star. 

The comets and the planets to the sun. 

Their moons to them, the atom unresolved 

Unto its brother atom — all become 

A portion of the visible pageantry. 

The shafts of force that wing their constant flight 

From world to world, no matter how remote. 

Are traced in light on the celestial sphere. 

And whether high or low the strong man turns 

To grasp the secret of the universe. 

This overwhelming lesson he must learn — 

This wide, imperial proclamation hear: 

One force in varied movement flows through all 

The countless arteries of Creation's life — ' 

One power prevails — one strength doth regulate 

Its mighty pulses through their infinite length — 

One will commands them forth — one calls them back 

To flow united through the heart of God. 

The man of strength reveals it in his work. 

The temple that he builds reflects himself. 

Its dome, though massive, is so well designed, 

With the supporting columns of such size 

And just proportions, each so firmly set 

In union with its fellows, as to fill 

His workman heart with pride and gratitude. 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

To him the burning tapers but illume 
The paths and virtues of its greater lights. 
Its lofty space and outlines grand become 

A sermon on the silent wings of thought 

An anthem on the organ's solemn voice 

A dream of high resolve— a soldier's prayer— 

An odor sweet from immemorial time • 

A promise — and a blessing— and a strength. 
Supported by this strength his soul is raised 
To further light in a sublime degree. 
The glamours loved in childhood fade away; 
The later passions cool; and in their place 
The calm, perpetual light of reason shines. 
Now purified his vision looks on hfe, 
And lo, 'tis not a picture only, — no, 
Nor but a battlefield; nor is it all 
Of life to merely live. True life must have 
A purpose and development — an art 
And a fruition, — conquering circumstance 
.Through character; perfecting loveliness 
With the all-penetrating spirit of love. 
Wisdom creates what wisdom sole can see — 
A higher beauty and a nobler strength. 
'Tis wisdom penetrates the soul of thing^ 
To find the inmost essence of their life. 
Appearances, like cobwebs brushed away, 
No more conceal the corners of the heart. 
From all phenomena the veil is rent. 
And there is light when spirit stands revealed 
Before the glance of Wisdom's spiritual eye. 
As cosmic beams, like wing-shod Mercurys, 
Are ever speeding through the trackless night 
From world to worlds, from star to universe, 
And pressing far to every island shore 
On that dim ocean of etherial space. 
And beating swift on every optic strand 
With silent, soft, inmicroscopic waves, 
Yet bearing all the warmth by which we thrive — 
So spiritual light, eternal and serene 
In undulation from the All-seeing Eye, 
Rolls through the dark abyss of ignorance 
And beats with flashing waves and still, small voice 
On mind and conscience with its vital truths. 
What is material life? A passing show. 
The myriad forms of beauty and of power 
Are emblems only of the things unseen: 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. , 

From that swift-reaching rainbow, hovering high 

Above the flying chariots of the storm, 

With peaceful promise on its silent lips, 

To this acacia sprig of slower growth 

And humbler station, but of longer life 

And deeper meaning where its bloom appears 

Above the grave of poor mortality 

In token of imperishable soul. 

The sun is yet, though in a wiser sense, 

The glory and the beauty of the day. 

For now internal qualifications are 

Regarded most. No borrowed light reflects 

From that great orb the blaze of mightier stars, 

But of its own intrinsic worth it shines. 

Even as the light of reason sheds the truth. 

Yet have they both their bounds immutable. 

At every rising of the sun we see 

What periods of recurrent order rule 

And govern nature from a secret source 

Of deeper being than the life of sense. 

Even so the human mind is circumscribed 

Within due boundaries by that unseen power, 

That spiritual truth behind phenomena. 

Inventive man produced the microscope 

And worlds inside of worlds countless revealed, 

And beauty found in things that seemed uncouth. 

The telescope he also made, and saw 

Sidereal lights transcendant more and more, 

With stellar life and circling harmony 

Where once were formless, dimly shining clouds. 

But better still than added powers of seeing, 

A new access of reverent search, with food 

For thoughts of loftier birth, invaded now 

The fair domain of science, and a page 

Magnificent was turned in nature's book. 

Not only infinite time and infinite space 

But infinite life itself comes surging in 

Around the very base of reason's throne. 

Which, raised upon its perfect waves, it bears 

Through fog and storm to sure foundations there 

Upon the luminous mountain-land of God. 

No instrument can aid the sensate eye 

To fix the essence of a power unseen; 

Nor can the language of the sensual heart 

Worship the holy spirit wheresoe'er. 

No pomp, no place, no time can render sweet 



PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

The noxious offerings of idolatry. 

God's worship is in spirit and in truth. 

The upright man looks not afar; but finds 

The Master Soul within his own pure heart — 

There humbly bows to reverence and adore. 

Nor takes he most delight in temples built 

With sound of hammer, axe or iron tool. 

The noblest building that was ever raised 

Through wisdom, strength and beauty born of man 

To him is but an emblem of that house 

Not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 

For he hath knowledge of himself, and sees 

Within himself the workman and the stone; 

Within himself the power to contemplate 

The spacious fabric of the universe; 

Within himself the wisdom to observe 

Divine perfections and from thence receive 

Instructiens good and wholesome for his work, 

Which straightway he begins and prosecutes 

With zealous faith. Although he finds his soul 

Shapeless and rough, naked and lustreless. 

Yet our Supreme Grand Master will present 

To him, as to the many gone this way 

Before him, every working tool he needs. 

But first will show the square of virtuous acts, 

The compass with its perfect points to bound 

And circumscribe his individual mind; 

With these that book of books, that rule and guide, 

That spiritual trestle-board whose surface wide 

Is covered with most beautiful designs. 

When from their contemplation he returns 

To look upon that emblematic stone, 

That rough embodiment of his own soul, 

Which he must fashion to its fitting shape. 

Well might his courage fail him, but he knows 

The goodness of that Architect Most High 

Who reared the intellect of man upon 

Those pillars three of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, 

It is a figure manly and sublime 

The craftsman now presents: He stands erect 

And gazes full upon his own short life 

With imperfections on its every face. 

No task of light and trifling nature this — 

He needs must kneel, a blessing to invoke. 

Beside him rest his trusty working tools. 

With eager hand he lifts them, one by one, 



015 785 904 3 

PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. 

Observes them with a look of high resolve, 
Applies them with a smile of laboring love. 
With one he measures out both work and time, 
With intervals for duty and for rest — 
With one he breaks away the edges rough 
Where vice and useless vanities project — 
With one he makes it upright and secure — 
With one he makes it virtuous and serene — 
With one adjusts and sets it true to fill 
Its purpose and its destined equal place — 
And with another spreads that pure cement 
Of love fraternal, to unite it with 
Its brothers in. a Temple of the Soul 
Beyond that level road of time, beyond 
That bourn which none may evermore repass. 
That sixth day even when the man must rest 
From all his labor howsoe'er performed. 
Well be it if the work is faithful done: 
Well be it if the finished life shall fit 
With such divine exactness as to show 
Itself the handiwork of one who wrought 
With wisdom, strength and beauty to the end. 
For such compose that Temple of the Soul, 
That spiritual building where the light of God 
In endless, unimagined splendor shines 
Through every living stone. So mote it be. 




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